A Solar-Powered Garden Soil Sensor

Edyn's new solar-powered garden soil sensor.

The Edyn Garden Sensor is basically a small stake with sensors built into it; you stick it in the dirt and it interacts with a smartphone app to provide readouts of soil moisture, nutrition, temperature and light and to suggest appropriate fertilizing and watering. The gadget can draw from a database of thousands of plants to suggest which ones would be most likely to thrive in your particular patch. The sensors are solar-powered but will also recharge under indoor grow lights. It's being shipped to Kickstarter backers now and will be on Home Depot shelves in May, priced at $99.

Moynihan notes that other companies have produced soil sensors, but this one — which Edyn's chief executive says he developed after working on agriculture projects in Panama and Kenya — is "built to the standards of serious farmers." Sleek and bright yellow, it also looks kind of cool in a suburban yard.

And the company is on the verge of producing the $59 Edyn Water Valve, also solar-powered, which threads into a standard garden hose connector, links to the Garden Sensor and can automate your watering system based on conditions of the moment. "It basically turns your garden into a self-driving car," Moynihan writes. But wait: What if you like driving — or gardening — yourself? Especially in spring?